Reports: Trump to Meet Monday with Intel Leaders

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3:00 P.M., THE WHITE HOUSE

by Sharon Rondeau

(May 21, 2018) — NBC News and The Hill have reported that President Donald Trump will be meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats at 3:00 PM on Monday.

The meeting comes after Trump on Sunday tweeted that on Monday he would formally “demand” a Justice Department investigation as to whether or not the FBI planted an informant to extract information about his 2016 presidential campaign for politically-motivated reasons.

CBS’s White House timekeeper Mark Knoller tweeted that the meeting was scheduled prior to Trump’s public Twitter demand for an investigation into the alleged informant.

Beginning on May 8, The Washington Post and The New York Times consistently divulged information about the alleged “informant,” described as a “top-secret intelligence source” by The Post whose identity cannot be divulged for reasons of national security. The two left-leaning outlets, however, have together provided enough information for many in the media to be able to discern his identity.

Last Tuesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes pointed to sworn testimony provided last December by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson stating that there was an informant within the Trump campaign, testimony which Nunes deemed to be accurate.

Whether or not Simpson misunderstood the placement of the informant as having been inside the campaign rather than external is unknown, although the possibility of two or more “spies” has also been floated.

On Sunday some had speculated that Rosenstein would resign rather than assign the Justice Department to investigate the FBI, but on Sunday evening, he responded by stating that he would ask the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, to expand his ongoing probe into allegations that the 2016 Clinton email probe was purposely mishandled for political reasons.

The public has not heard from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from any matters related to Russia, of which allegations of “collusion” among members of the Trump campaign arose in 2016 and were eventually leaked to the press in the form of the existence of the Trump “dossier” commissioned by Fusion GPS and paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.

Sessions had served as a foreign-policy advisor to Trump during the campaign and said that Justice Department ethics rules mandated his recusal. That claim has been refuted by some legal analysts, and Trump has publicly said that had he known Sessions would recuse himself, he would have chosen another nominee for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

Wray was nominated by Trump last summer and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in July, officially assuming his post on August 1, 2017. In rare public statements, he has thus far appeared to defend the integrity of the FBI.

Following the mass shooting in Parkland, FL in February, however, Wray admitted that two separate communications had been made to the agency regarding Nikolas Cruz, the self-admitted murderer of 14 students and three instructors on February 14 following dozens of interactions with law enforcement over several years which never culminated in his arrest.

During the noon hour on the Fox News Channel, Rep. Matt Gaetz told co-anchor Harris Faulkner that he and other members of Congress who have been investigating political influence within the FBI and DOJ have evidence of such which has not yet been briefed to the White House.

On Monday morning, radio host Bongino told the co-host of “Fox & Friends” that his research has shown that former CIA Director John Brennan was involved in creating the appearance of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence operatives.

On Sunday, Brennan directed a tweet toward Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to thwart Trump’s call for an investigation. On Monday morning, Trump fired back on Twitter using Bongino’s language claiming that Brennan “has disgraced the entire intelligence community.”

On Monday morning, Sen. Rand Paul said he believes that British intelligence supplied some of the claims made against Trump to the CIA, then headed by Brennan under Obama, which were included in the Steele dossier.

Also on Monday, career CIA employee and supervisor Gina Haspel was sworn in as the agency’s new director with Trump looking on.

On Monday investigative journalist Sara A. Carter reported that the meeting will encompass requests for documents made by members of the House Freedom Caucus who formally called upon Trump to “declassify” the documentation last week.

Sharon Rondeau has operated The Post & Email since April 2010, focusing on the Obama birth certificate investigation and other government corruption news. She has reported prolifically on constitutional violations within Tennessee’s prison and judicial systems.